Syllabus

Download the syllabus as a Word doc.

Course Schedule: Tuesday 9.30 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.

Location: Room 104, School of Journalism

Instructors

Prof Alfred Hermida
Graduate School of Journalism, Room 211
Contact: alfred.hermida AT ubc.ca
@hermida

Prof Julio Viskovich
Sauder School of Business
Contact: julio.viskovich AT sauder.ubc.ca
@juliovisko

Course description

We are sharing more media from more sources with more people, more often and more quickly than ever before. Social media extends and enhances our ability to engage in dynamic, ongoing conversations and actively produce, as well as consume, content in every imaginable form. Social media is the new operating system for information. Information wants to be social. It wants to be shared, discussed, contested and corrected. The rise of social media has expanded our ability to influence what is published, changed the way we organise, challenged institutional control of information and transformed how companies reach customers. Citizens are no longer simply consumers of commercial messaging and formal news, but are creators, shapers, participants and sometimes consumers. This change has profound organizations for all institutions interested in communicating and influencing the public and who have been rapidly challenged to give up message control.

]This course combines immersion in social media tools with a theoretical foundation to equip students with the knowledge and practical skills they need to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the evolving digital media ecosystem. The course simulates an interdisciplinary think tank environment. Students will identify research questions, develop applied projects and examine the impact of social media and social networking technologies on various aspects of society, business, culture, communication, web experience, and interface design.

There will be significant teamwork where business and journalism students collaborate on an applied social media project. There will be opportunity to learn from each other, and for individual students to pursue more advanced learning in specific areas of interest, such as sourcing and crafting stories using social media tools, or commercial monitoring and publishing tools like Hootsuite Pro.

Course Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be expected to have:

  • Acquired an understanding of how digital technologies and media are reshaping political, business, social and cultural norms and practices
  • Be familiar with major concepts and theory about networked digital media
  • Be proficient with the best application of social media tools and practices in stakeholder communication, be it in marketing, business, NGO or journalism
  • Obtained experience in, and gained an understanding of, how to conduct a social media project from inception to completion
  • Be competent in the use of tools to assess and evaluate the performance of a social media initiative
  • Recognized the changes effected by social media in major aspects of Canada’s society, economy and culture, along with future implications and possibilities

Course materials

We will be using UBC Blogs to host the course website. Details of the course, assignments, readings and additional material will be posted there. https://blogs.ubc.ca/decodingsocialmedia2015/

Readings:

Required textbook:
Hermida, Alfred (2014) Tell Everyone: Why We Share and Why It Matters, (Doubleday Canada). Available in hardcover at the UBC Bookstore, Chapters, Amazon.ca and other booksellers, and as an ebook in the Kindle and iBookstore.

Weekly readings are posted on the UBC Blogs Decoding Social Media website

Assignments:
Assignments are to be submitted via Connect.

HootSuite certification – 5%
Complete the HootSuite certification course and submit a screenshot of completion.
For students who have HS certification, please submit a short paper (800 words) with practical guidance of how HS can be used for their client in monitoring, publishing and analytics. Due Jan 27, 9.30 a.m.

Social media professional portfolio – 20%
Create and develop a professional portfolio. The portfolio must include, as a minimum, an up to date LinkedIn profile page. Two-stage assignment:

  • Social media audit: Current self-audit and proposal for improvement during course (max 2 pages) – formative feedback but not graded. Due Feb 10, 9.30 a.m.
  • Social media portfolio: Create/develop professional social media portfolio. Due March 10, 9.30 a.m.

Social media in-class presentations – 15%
Students will work in pairs to prepare a 8 minute in-class presentation on best practice use of social media, based on a theme.

Applied client project: Content and community – 50%
Students will work in groups, bringing together Sauder and Journalism students, on a social media project for a client. This collaborative project is intended to be a practical, hands-on exploration and implementation of what we’ve covered throughout the course.

Project breakdown:

  • Discovery: Assessment of needs and proposal (including an assessment of suitable HS Pro plugins) – 10%. Due Jan 27 9.30 a.m.
  • Analysis: Outline and scope of work (including evidence of significant research), assigned to individual team members – 20%. Due Feb 24, 9.30 a.m.
  • Deploy and learn: Provide plan to client to test/implement/assess and aid in execution. Assessment of results and recommendations – 20%. Due March 31, 9.30 a.m.

Reflection report: – 10%
A two page reflection on the course and project – 10% (individual grade). Due April 7, 9.30 a.m.

Course policies

The due dates of all assignments are stated clearly – failure to submit an assignment by the due date, without a valid written reason beforehand, will result in the loss of 5% of the assignment’s value for each day beyond the due date and your paper will be returned to you much later than other papers. Reasonable requests for extensions may be granted, but requests must be made at least 24 hours before the assignment is due. For obvious reasons extensions cannot be granted for the presentations.

Please see the following websites on Academic Integrity and the writing of papers from the Faculty of Arts.

You are expected to attend every class. You should be professional in your approach which involves being punctual and coming prepared for discussion on the topics under discussion.

Should you have a religious observance that will prevent you from attending class, from completing an assignment on time, please be sure to let us know at least two weeks in advance so that alternate arrangements can be made.

iPeer evaluation

Given the degree of group work involved in this course, students will be asked to assess each other using iPeer. There may be a grade adjustment of up to 5 per cent based on peer evaluation by groups at end of the course.

Course Schedule

Week 1 – Jan 6
Course introduction: Understanding social media.

Week 2 – Jan 13
Why we share, what we share, how we share, when we share.
Who are you on social? Assessing your social media profile.

Week 3 – Jan 20
Designing a social media strategy: How to decide on audience, objectives, strategy and technologies.
Guest speaker: Craig Silverman on social media verification.

Week 4 – Jan 27
Monitoring, conversing, engaging and analyzing social media trends and impact.

Week 5 – Feb 3
Tell stories together: Content creation/curation/aggregation/crowdsourcing.

Week 6 – Feb 10
Developing a professional social media profile.

Reading Week break – no class Feb 17

Week 8 – Feb 24
Client project workshop.

Week 9 – Mar 3
Ethics of social media.

Week 10 – Mar 10
Designing and running tests on sharing: What works, what doesn’t.

Week 11 – Mar 17
Social media as disruptor.

Week 12 –Mar 24
The business of social media: Emerging models in paid, owned and earned media.

Week 13 – March 31
Workshop on client projects.

Week 14 – April 7
No class: Time allocated for project meeting with clients.